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Tuesday April 16, 2024
Harris Khalique
Harris Khalique

  • April 14, 2021

    Farewell, Rehman Sahib

    How do you dissolve that lump in your throat when you begin to write the obituary of I A Rehman? Possibly by first remembering what a wit he was....

  • August 02, 2017

    Nawaz to become PM again: Abbasi

    ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly on Tuesday elected senior Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz parliamentarian Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the new prime...

  • February 01, 2017

    Shunning the idea of South Asia

    Side-effect I am a reader of Muhammad Amir Rana’s writings. Some of his research on understanding conflict and terrorism in the Muslim world,...

  • January 25, 2017

    Then and now –­ a difference

    Side-effect I chanced upon a meme the other day. It has a smiling picture of our leading human rights defender, lawyer and social critic, Asma...

  • January 18, 2017

    Dealing with dissent

    Part - II Side-effect In any state and society, tolerance for dissent is the first step towards making the state and society internally strong,...

  • January 11, 2017

    Dealing with dissent

    Part - I Side-effect Every state has some form of ideological foundations – whether the state is considered an ideological state like...

  • January 04, 2017

    The deepening crisis of scholarship

    Part - III Side-effect So what does this deepening crisis of scholarship mean for us as a people – South Asian Muslims – in our daily...

  • December 28, 2016

    The deepening crisis of scholarship (Part II)

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  • December 28, 2016

    The deepening crisis of scholarship (Part II)

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  • December 21, 2016

    The deepening crisis of scholarship

    Part - I Side-effect One’s view is primarily that of a creative writer. But since one’s interests straddle history, politics, culture...

  • December 14, 2016

    What splits us? A WhatsApp case study

    Side-effect Like many of you must have experienced with your friends and colleagues, some of my friends, old classmates, acquaintances and...

  • December 07, 2016

    Sights that don’t bother us

    Side-effect You are a Pakistani. You are reading this newspaper. Either it was delivered to your doorstep when the day began or put on your desk at...

  • November 16, 2016

    Unnamed, unsung, invisible

    Side-effect You lock them up inside the factory where they work and then burn them down alive. They are in hundreds – women, men and young...

  • November 12, 2016

    Looking at the verdict

    Side-effect It has sunk in by now that Donald John Trump, the Republican nominee, has convincingly won the presidential election against Hillary...

  • November 02, 2016

    There is little difference

    Side-effect Even if we are fine otherwise in social situations, laidback and jovial, warm and friendly, inclusive and hospitable as people, when it...

  • October 26, 2016

    People are always wrong

    Side-effect The people of Pakistan – also whenever they become the electorate to choose a government – either have a serious crisis of...

  • October 19, 2016

    On our public discourse

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. I acknowledge that what I have wanted to say today, after being away for a couple...

  • September 28, 2016

    The state, the nation and the ‘Os’

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. In the Europe of the 1990s, when walls, countries, armies, ideologies and peoples...

  • September 21, 2016

    To be or not to be a modern republic

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Here are two questions that can be seen as one – inter-related but can be...

  • September 07, 2016

    The crisis of Mohajir identity

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Before we come to the question of who is a Mohajir, let me state at the outset...

  • August 31, 2016

    So shall you reap

    Part - III Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. We are where we are. Forces of history, international order,...

  • August 24, 2016

    So shall you reap

    Part - II Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. While Muslim societies were being radicalised with the encouragement of...

  • August 17, 2016

    So shall you reap

    Part - I Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. There may be nothing new for some informed and insightful readers today....

  • August 03, 2016

    Boys who are not boys

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. On Dawn News in English, one of the few English television news channels we used...

  • July 27, 2016

    Finding the principal contradiction

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. ‘On Contradiction’ is one of those theoretical works by Mao Zedong,...

  • July 20, 2016

    Is the tide turning?

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Abdul Sattar Edhi believed in organ donation and had asked his family to donate...

  • July 13, 2016

    Edhi, people and the state

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. The tribute was befitting, from people and from the state. Edhi lived a life of...

  • July 06, 2016

    Conspiring against ourselves

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. When the news of our leading qawwal and Sufi musician Amjad Sabri’s...

  • June 22, 2016

    Building walls and expelling refugees

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. The more progress humanity makes in terms of realising fundamental rights and...

  • June 15, 2016

    San Bernardino and Orlando

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. One has the right to form an opinion, reach a decision, profess an idea and act...

  • June 08, 2016

    Khushal Baba

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. The Heaven has not left a single heart intact/It has stained each and every one by...

  • June 01, 2016

    Affairs not so foreign

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. I read with interest the recent news reports of a dialogue being held in Islamabad...

  • May 18, 2016

    Mirza Zahirdaar Baig

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Nazir Ahmed Dehlavi, famously known as Dipty Nazir Ahmed , was a 19th century...

  • May 11, 2016

    The mayor of Lahore

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author basedin Islamabad. It is but natural to feel happy when you see a woman or a man who shares your...

  • May 04, 2016

    Some unsolicited advice for Bilawal

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Why would an ordinary citizen of Pakistan stand up and start offering advice to...

  • April 27, 2016

    Hail monopolistic capitalism

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. How do we view power? How do we want our political representatives to look? How do...

  • April 13, 2016

    Something good about us

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Amidst all intellectual bankruptcy, ethical challenges, social fragmentation and...

  • April 06, 2016

    The challenge posed by women

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. There are books and then there are books. One such work that substantially...

  • March 30, 2016

    The anger and the rhetoric

    Part - III Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. What will then address the issues of our intellectual despondency and...

  • March 23, 2016

    The anger and the rhetoric

    Part - II Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Today, besides Pakistan all South Asian Muslims societies including...

  • March 16, 2016

    The anger and the rhetoric

    Part - I Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. At the turn of the twentieth century, Indians had started gaining a new...

  • March 09, 2016

    The MQM tamasha

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. Iftikhar Arif, one of our leading poets, says in one of his relatively recent...

  • March 02, 2016

    Politics of identity, politics of class

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. I wouldn’t want to be seen as a scoundrel taking last refuge in patriotism,...

  • February 24, 2016

    Let people be

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. My sister-in-law was born to a Pakistani soldier – someone truly...

  • February 17, 2016

    Celebrating spending and consumption

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. I don’t remember – thinking back to my childhood – most people...

  • February 14, 2016

    From Srinagar to Karachi

    Side-effect As a student and practitioner of poetry, the find for me in the Karachi Literary Festival 2016 was the poetry of Rafiq Kathwari, the...

  • February 03, 2016

    Power to the girls

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. This is in continuation of the last point I made in the previous column. Boys will...

  • January 27, 2016

    Boys will be boys

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. In Kabul, the temperature was not that low but the wind chill factor made it feel...

  • January 20, 2016

    Turn left

    Side-effect The writer is a poet and author based in Islamabad. “I went to India, but after my exile I came back. My family’s lands and riches...